Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for headaches

Electrical stimulation of the nervous system is widely used for a variety of conditions and in a variety of ways. The nervous system can be electrically stimulated at the level of the brain, by implanting electrodes into the brain, at the level of spinal cord, also with implanted electrodes or at the level of peripheral nerves in the skin by attaching an adhesive electrode or with an implanted wires. The conditions that can be helped by electrical stimulation range from Parkinsons disease and depression to chronic low back pain and post-herpetic neuralgia (shingles). Stimulation of the nerves through adhesive electrodes temporarily attached to the skin is called transcutaneous electrical stimulation, or TENS. TENS has been proven to help a variety of musculo-skeletal conditions, such as back pain and arthritis pain.
There have been some studies of the use of TENS for headaches, but none of them have been as rigorous and scientific as the one just published in Neurology. The lead author, a Belgian neurologist and a headache specialist Dr. Jean Schoenen and his colleagues conducted a study on 67 patients with a proprietary TENS device called Cefaly. The device is put on the forehead like eyeglasses and it contains electrodes which stimulate the nerves above the eyes. The study showed that by using this stimulator for 20 minutes daily for 3 months patients reduced the number of their migraine headaches from an average of 7 to 5 a month. Those patients who put on the device but were not given electrical stimulation (the sham, or placebo group) did not improve.
The device costs about $368 on Amazon and $240 at Costco in Canada. It is not clear if this device offers any advantages over a TENS unit that costs about $50 and is widely available in this country. Perhaps, Cefaly is much more convenient in that it does not require adhesive electrodes with wires attached to a little box. Another possible advantage is the stimulating current may have specific frequency, strength and wave shape, which provides better relief. However, an electrical engineer could easily hook up the Cefaly unit to a monitor and figure out and publicize these settings. I do not suggest that the people who developed this device and did all the testing do not deserve to be financially rewarded. They may, in fact be rewarded because their device is significantly more convenient and simple to use and many people will prefer it to a more cumbersome device.
Photo credit: Cefaly.com